Singletary smells a rat

In 2006, Raiders coach Art Shell said there was a “fox in the henhouse” as he demoted offensive coordinator Tom Walsh.

Four years later, 49ers coach Mike Singletary said “I smell a rat” as he stood by his offensive coordinator, Jimmy Raye. He just doesn’t have time to weed out the unnamed sources of a Yahoo! Sports story that said Raye struggles to get plays called in and sometimes garbles it all up.

“As a head coach, one of the most important things I need to do is decide where I spend my time. The time that I have, I need to think about certain things. What’s in that article, the thing that I always strive to do is deal with men. If a man has something to say, he’s going to find a way to come and tell you. I don’t want to deal with a rat. I don’t want to spend my time trying to find out who said this, who did that. The article is not factual, No. 1. Number 2, I don’t want to spend my time trying to find a rat. In time, the smell will come. If the rat is in the building, it will show but I’m not going to go try and find it.”

Asked a second time, Singletary said this …

“I believe in our country, in society, the saddest thing has happened. One thing that I want to teach our guys is to be men. If there’s something that you have to say, go say it, and say that you said it. But don’t go say a bunch of stuff, ‘But don’t tell him I said it.’ To me, that’s a rat, that’s a coward, so those things I can’t spend my time on.”

“Wherever that story came from, I don’t believe it’s in the building, but if it is, it will find itself out in time. Am I pissed off about it? I would say this, it’s just something that’s disappointing. Pissed off maybe is a little more immediate reaction. You’re just disappointed something like that is written.”

So what does this all mean? No one knows yet. Singletary still hasn’t decided whether Raye will call plays from the sideline or stay in the coaches booth — Raye said he prefers the booth, but it’s Singletary’s call.

Raye said this about the miscommunication that led to three burned timeouts and a delay of game Sunday:

“It’s my responsibility. I bear all the responsibility for the way we operate on offense. I’m the leader. It’s my watch. I have the responsibility for the things that occur where it concerns the offense.”

“I think it’s important that all of you understand that this game has a human element to it. Of the games that were played last week, I would dare say that there was anyone in the position I’m in that was flawless. So, what could I have done better? I could have maybe had a better plan. I could maybe have made some better decisions. Hopefully the ones that I made were the correct ones. You hope they play out that way. Because of that there are any number of things that you always think back on when you lose that you could have done better. And if you don’t, then you probably shouldn’t be in the game.”